May 20, 2018 Feast of Pentecost- Cycle B Fr. Larry Richards

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Kathryn Randall
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1 May 20, 2018 Feast of Pentecost- Cycle B Fr. Larry Richards Good Morning! And how are you blessed? Blessed especially on Pentecost. And as I was reflecting on Pentecost, you know, yesterday, I was down in Memphis and I spoke to all these people in Memphis and a bunch of men the night before and we talked about the Holy Spirit. And I had kind of liked the Holy Spirit the other day before I was getting ready to go to Memphis. I did my holy hour from three to four as I always do on Friday mornings and I didn t have to leave to go to the airport to about 6 o clock, so I thought I would take a nice little nap before I had to take my shower and get to the airport. So my dogs were already at Paul and Bernie s house as normal and because I m leaving and so I go and take a little bit of nap and I hear this noise and I thought there must have been some squirrels up in our attic because up on the third floor of the rectory. But then it was getting the closer. I thought what the heck? So I opened my eyes and there s a bat going around in my room right there and the door was closed and me and the bat are in the room. Now if you remember I was bit by a bat in that same bed a couple years ago. And that s when I had to get my rabies shots and everything else. And I had a talk about that night about being a man. I was not a man at that moment. I was under the covers I kept the covers on me. I put the covers up and I got out of the room and I took a shower. Anyways, but the reality was I kept thinking was there any bats bites on me or anything else scared to stuff. So that isn t the kind, you know, that bat is not the Holy Spirit, that s what we re talking about, the Holy Spirit

2 who comes as a dove. If a dove would of came to me in the middle of the night I d would have been very excited but it was a bat. I don t if that means anything, but, hopefully the bat is gone. But anyway, as I was reflecting and I was talking to the guys about this very thing. And I says and I still believe the problem with the church today is that most people have not yet surrendered to the Holy Spirit. That we try to live the Christian life under our own power. And that s been the problem. Even people in this very church. There s a number of you that have not surrendered to the Holy Spirit. You have the Holy Spirit is that correct? You are all given the Holy Spirit when you were baptized. You re given the Holy Spirit when you were confirmed. But again our kids got confirmed last night and every one of the kids, I wasn t here, I heard about it, trust me. But anyway, as I talked to every one of the kids who had to come and be interviewed by me before I would send them on to be confirmed, I said the same thing to them. I says listen, God wants to give you everything when He gives it to you. But 99% of the people that get confirm nothing happens. I did the retreat this year and I says what s the first thing necessary to unlock the sacrament people of God? Faith is necessary to unlock the sacrament. Again that s why so many people this very day will come to communion and nothing will change in your life. Absolutely nothing because you receive communion without faith and you wonder why am I just like everybody else? Because you don t have the faith unlock the sacrament. So the first thing that needs to happen when it comes to the Holy Spirit is you have faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. That the spirit has the power to become completely change your life if you let Him. If you believe in Him. If you surrender to Him and not just show up for mass on Sunday.

3 But see the problem with the bishop s, problems with the priest s, the problems with our parishioners is we don t live this life for the Holy Spirit. We try to be good people, we don t make it, and of course we don t make it. That s why we have to run to confession every week because we have a dirty thought. Because your living your life without the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, like again, I said a thousand times, like I was talking to these men, I say what happens with me is the Holy Spirit comes upon me, He sets me on fire, and people come to watch me burn. That s got to be happening to all of us. That the Spirit of God sets you on fire and people come to watch you burn. And the way you can tell whether you have surrendered to the Holy Spirit or not is very simple. Are you ready to find out how you can tell if you re are one to surrendered or not? Are you really? Well let me tell you how. What happened, the apostles when they heard the first reading today, they were there and they were afraid and they were focused on themselves and how they can do what they were doing or not doing and it wasn t working? Then the Holy Spirit came upon them. And what s the first thing that they did? They went out and proclaimed Jesus Christ. The way you find out if you have surrendered to the Holy Spirit or not is if you go and witness it to others and bring the gospel to others and reach out to others. You don t exist every day to sit there and say am I going to be a good Christian today or not a good Christian? I m going to try to live a good life or not? You go out and you exist to make disciples of other people. That s how you can tell if you been surrendered to the Holy Spirit or not. So do you live a life every day where you trying to bring others into an intimate relationship with Jesus. And if the answer s no, I just told you why. You have not yet surrendered your life to the Holy Spirit.

4 That s the fruit of someone who is surrendered to the life of the Holy Spirit is they go out because that s what the Spirit does. The Spirit wants everybody to come to the knowledge of truth. Is that true? So when you and I have surrendered to that Spirit we re on fire to bring others to the knowledge of that truth. Again, all these people came to me in Memphis and saying, Father you know I ve been a Baptist for all my life and now, finally, I listen to your tape and been watching you on YouTube and I m finally going to come do what I need to do to become a Catholic. Or this Father everything finally change. Father, I was having a problem with porn. And all of a sudden, bam! Everything stopped. I was set free from all that. And I said because of the Holy Spirit. That s the point. And if we all start surrendering to that. So I said to them is the same thing I told you. It s in the bulletin again today. Is you start praying the prayer daily of surrender to the Holy Spirit. You begin there. You say Spirit come take over me. Live your life in me. Set me on fire. That I may go forth from this place today and bring other people into an intimacy with you. You don t have to hit them over the head. All s you got to do is witness to them. To share with them the power of God in your life. But I am here to tell you if you re not sharing the gospel you re not surrendered to the Holy Spirit and I m very clear and I m very open about it and I want you to make sure. I want you to be convicted in your heart. If you sit there and think I have never shared the gospel with anybody because you have never surrendered your heart to the Holy Spirit. That s why. So I can t do anything about that for you. Can t do it. You have to do it. I m telling you how. You start surrendering that gift. And again like a said to the kids, if I want to give you Lake Erie, I want to give it all to you. If you come to me with a thimble, I ll give you

5 a thimble full of the water. If you come to me with a cup, I ll give you a cup full. If you come to me with a bucket, I ll give you a bucketful. If you come to me with a wheel barrel, I ll give you a wheel barrelful. If you come to me with a truck, I ll give to you a truck full. Come to me with a lake, I ll give you all of it. The same with you. God wants to give you the fullness of His Spirit. What you receive it s totally open to you. How much you open yourself to Him is how much you ll receive. So if you open yourself a little, or you ll only have a little of the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit. You ll be very quiet. If you open yourself a lot, you ll be set on fire. And just think if everyone of us here would fully surrender ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit, we could convert this City of Erie within a year. But again we want to our own little thing. We want to show up at mass, getting my card stamped, don t go to hell. I don t want to go to hell. I really don t like it going to church you know and keep going on. And finding our why aren t we alive. Fully alive. Because we haven t fully surrendered ourselves. So let this be the last Pentecost that you have not fully surrendered yourself to God. Today let it be the day that you and I continue to surrender ourselves every day. If we haven t said that prayer of the Holy Spirit we say it now. And if we just been going through the motions of just saying that prayer of the Holy Spirit we say God from this day forward I want you. I surrender myself to you. Set me on fire and you watch what God will do. Got it? Get it? Gonna do it? May each of you know His love today and forever, Amen.

HOMILY Constant Prayer -- Not an Option!

HOMILY Constant Prayer -- Not an Option! Father Larry Richards Moderator, Bread of Life Community Homily for the 7th Sunday of Easter Cycle A READINGS: Acts 1:12-14; 1 Peter 4:13-16; John 17:1-11a Today